Crossing Paths
by midnight-tessa
Summary: A fellow student needs saving, Jasper is the one to do it. Also featuring Jasper's own struggle. Leaving it pretty open right now. Not sure about pairings, if there will even be any. Mature themes, but nothing graphic. Rated M just to be safe. Carlisle, Alice, and Edward also make appearances.
1. Chapter 1

**Crossing Paths: Chapter One**

"If you would please sit down, Miss McCrory."

Katie did as her teacher instructed and sat down in the middle desk of the front row. As it was lunchtime, the classroom was currently empty, other than herself and her homeroom teacher, Mr. Hummel. She had a makeup test to take, since she'd been absent last week, but felt fairly confident she'd do alright in it. She wasn't the best at history, but she'd read the reading – twice in fact – so she figured she had nothing to worry about.

While her teacher went to his desk to grab the test, she reached down into her backpack for her pencil case. She pulled out a pen, took a deep breath, and waited as her teacher made his way toward her. He put the test face-down on her desk, then cracked open a bottle of water, which he then handed to her. "You've got one hour."

Katie nodded, took a sip of the water, and flipped over her test, remembering to sign her name at the top. Mr. Hummel sat quietly at his desk, grading papers.

After quickly reading through the questions, Katie got to work. The first few questions were a breeze. The fourth question, however, was an essay question that was giving her a little more trouble. She tried to concentrate, but the answers just weren't there. Grabbing for the water, she took a few large gulps, followed by a few deep breaths, hoping it would help get her back on track and refocused. She looked up at the clock and made a mental note – 40 mins left.

Deciding to just skip the question for now, she moved on to the next question – an easy one. Her confidence rose as she continued through the test, answering any questions she immediately knew, but soon she found herself again staring at that dreaded essay question that was worth 40 percent of the test's overall grade. 20 mins left.

More water. More deep breaths.

"Just concentrate," she said to herself, tapping her pen against the paper.

Mr. Hummel looked up, "Did you say something, Miss McCrory?"

"Just talking to myself," Katie said, louder this time, looking at her teacher.

"Okay, 15 minutes." Her teacher tapped at his watch for emphasis.

Katie just nodded and looked back down to her test. Like she needed the reminder. She knew she was running out of time, but despite her best efforts, she struggled to focus long enough to get some kind of decent answer down on the paper. Even just reading the question in its entirety was becoming a struggle at this point. Maybe she wasn't really ready to return to school after all.

More water, more deep breaths, and this time, some stretching. She looked from the empty bottle to her hand. The pen was starting to feel foreign between her fingers.

She rolled the pen between her fingers briefly before looking up. "Mr. Hummel?"

"Yes?"

"I don't – "

Before she could even finish her sentence, Mr. Hummel was out of his seat, heading over to his pupil.

"Are you okay?" He bent down to her level, touching her forehead with the back of his hand. "Do you need to go home?"

She didn't speak, but just ever-so-barely shook her head no.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Hummel further inquired. "You don't look okay."

It was almost a whisper, but she managed a quiet, "No, I just need to lay down for a bit." She wasn't about to bother her mother with this. She'd be fine. She always was.

"Can you stand?"

"I think so," Katie replied, but it was clear even before she was fully standing, that she wasn't going to make it very far.

Mr. Hummel lifted her into his arms with ease – she was quite small – and he made his way out of the classroom and down the hall. Those he passed stared and whispered amongst themselves, but didn't think much of the scene. After all, Katie was known as "the sick girl", often spending long periods of time in hospital – a reason she hadn't become very close friends with any of the other students.

It wasn't until the teacher rounded the final corner to his office that he passed Jasper. Jasper, who knew only vaguely of the girl – she was a grade or two below him and was often sick? – didn't really think much of scene either, so he continued on his way down the hall in the opposite direction. As he walked, however, something in the back of his mind nagged at him.

As he passed his fellow students, he picked up feelings of worry or pity from most of them, but remembering back to the teacher, he felt neither of these feelings. Instead, he recalled a distinct feeling of excitement mixed with anticipation from the teacher. But why? Something wasn't right, that much was obvious, so Jasper turned around in search of the student-teacher pair.

He walked until he stood in front of an office labeled _Arthur Hummel_. He knew this was the place, not by the name – he hadn't known the teacher's name – but rather by the sound of the heartbeats on the other side of the door – one fast, the other far slower than it should be. He knocked and waited, but nothing. He tried for the doorknob, but it wouldn't turn. After a moment's hesitation, he pushed at the door, which easily gave under his vampire strength.

The sight before him, angered him immediately.

On the couch lay the girl, barely moving, in a state of partial undress. Above her hovered the so-called Mr. Hummel, running his hands over places he had no business touching.

In less than a second, Jasper had grabbed the man and thrown him into a filing cabinet in the corner of the small room. Jasper watched as the teacher cried out in pain, clutching his left wrist with his other hand. The teacher then looked ready to lunge at Jasper, who held his ground between the man and the barely conscious girl on the couch, a look of pure rage on his face. The teacher clearly thought better of his original plan and backed off almost immediately, instead, choosing to quickly leave the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Crossing Paths: Chapter Two**

Turning back to the girl, Jasper quickly shrugged off his jacket and leaned in close to drape it over her for privacy's sake. Though incredibly weak, he could sense a definite feeling of panic coming from the girl. About to use his gift to manipulate her emotions, he was caught off-guard by her scent which triggered within him a hungered frenzy that sent him teeth bared toward her neck.

An unconscious snarl escaped his lips before he quickly forced himself away from the girl, slamming his back into the wall behind him. Hating himself and fearing about what he might do next, he rushed out of the room and punched the brick wall next to the open door. He quickly looked around, thankful to find the hall completely deserted, then pulled the door closed as best as he could in its broken state.

Not willing to re-enter the room, but knowing he couldn't just leave the girl as she was, Jasper reached into his pocket and grabbed his cellphone. He quickly dialed his adoptive guardian Carlisle and explained the situation. Being a doctor, he'd know what to do.

When the man on the other end of the call told him he'd be right over, Jasper felt relieved, but still refused to move from his place out in the hall. He was only barely keeping his emotions in check at this point and didn't dare re-enter the room in his current state.

Finally, after a wait that felt much longer than it actually was, Carlisle appeared in the hallway. Wordlessly taking in his surroundings, Carlisle looked from Jasper to the mostly closed and clearly broken door. Without wasting time, the doctor pushed open the door and entered the room.

"It's Katherina McCrory," Carlisle stated as he knelt down next to the girl. He'd seen her several times at the hospital in town where he worked.

"Katie… Katie, can you hear me?" Carlisle gently shook her shoulder, getting nothing but a quiet moan in response to his efforts. He grabbed his light and shone it into her eyes, one at a time, looking for a reaction, but finding her pupils sluggish.

Jasper watched from the doorway. _Katie – that was her name?_ He felt a twinge of guilt realizing he hadn't even known the girl's name or really anything about her, but it wasn't like he made a point of interacting with humans, so it didn't surprise him all that much.

As Carlisle continued his assessment of the girl, he said, "It could just be her heart condition causing this extreme level of lethargy, but my guess is she's been sedated. I'll need to run some tests at the hospital to be sure."

A grimace crossed Jasper's face at the revelation. A very sick, recently assaulted, probably sedated girl lay nearly unconscious on the couch before him and in the back of his mind, all he wanted to do was taste her blood. "I can't be here."

Carlisle turned back to the doorway, but Jasper was already long gone.

Before school had even finished, Jasper left for the hospital. Though he hadn't really known much about the girl before today, somehow now, the thought of her nagged at the back of his mind. He felt almost responsible for her. The closer he got to the hospital, however, the more he remembered why he avoided such places with every fiber of his being. At the first scent of blood, he froze in his tracks.

"I can do this," Jasper tried to reassure himself, willing his bloodlust away, but the overwhelming terror of losing control wouldn't let him move. Forcing the thought to the back of his mind he mumbled, "I will do this."

Just as he lifted his foot off the ground to take a step closer, he felt a pair of small hands wrap around one of his own. "I've seen it Jasper. You can't go in there." Alice had silently made her way to Jasper's side during his internal struggle. He turned to see Alice looking at him with a pained expression, sadly shaking her head no. "Let's just go."

Once Jasper and Alice had arrived home, only Edward was there to greet them. Equipped with his mind-reading ability, it didn't take him long to piece together what had taken place earlier in the day. Jasper kept running the same four scenes over in his mind – the sick girl being carried down the hallway, the teacher's hands all over the poor girl's body, the teacher slamming into the filing cabinet, and Jasper himself nearly biting the frightened girl's neck.

Alice, on the other hand, kept envisioning Jasper's almost slaughter at the hospital.

Edward, upon seeing such scenes, crossed the room and lightly rested his hand on his adoptive brother's shoulder. "You stopped him. No matter what you almost did, you stopped him _and yourself_. You're not the monster here."

Alice silently watched the exchange from her seat next to Jasper, trying to figure out for herself what had happened. After seeing a future where Jasper slaughtered an entire hospital, however, she decided it best to wait a while before looking for her answers. She'd give him time to gain control of his emotions first. In the meantime, she sat stroking his hand with her thumb, so he'd know he wasn't alone in whatever struggle it was he was trying to overcome.

Though he appreciated Alice and Edward's sentiments, all Jasper really wanted to be for the time being was alone. "Yeah," was all he could manage in response to his adoptive brother's words before getting up and leaving for the solitude of his own room.

Once Jasper was out of earshot, Alice reached for Edward's hand, gently pulling him back and hoping he'd take a seat next to her. Edward knew what she wanted before she even asked and sat down next to her to fill her in.

"It seems Jasper found one of the teachers all over this girl at school – that sick one that's always in and out of the hospital," He shook his head. "I don't know her name."

"Katie?" Alice interjected. Of the vampires, she was the only one who really paid any attention to her fellow students, though her interactions with them were rather limited as well.

"I'm not sure, but she seemed pretty out of it. Anyway, after he stopped him, well… he just about bit her himself. He's feeling awfully guilty about it."

Alice nodded in understanding. Katie must have been taken to the hospital, which is why Jasper was ready to enter the one place he hadn't in as long as she'd known him. Her vision told her, however, that he still wasn't ready for such an undertaking.

"I'm sure once Carlisle gets home we'll know more," Edward continued.

Again, Alice just nodded and pictured the hospital carnage that thankfully never came to be, as Edward gently squeezed her leg. "You both did good today. Things could have been a lot worse if it weren't for the two of you."


End file.
